


Now That We Understand Each Other

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alastair's Presence Is Only Implied, Alternate Universe - Dean Knows All The Secrets, Alternate Universe Thing That Never Happened in S4, Anger, Angst, But Before the Panic Room, Everyone In The Room Knows This Didn't Happen In Canon Oh Well, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, I don't think, Implied Relationships, M/M, Maybe makes the panic room irrelevant I don't know, Not A Fix-It, Not Canon Compliant, Not Happy, Off-screen Relationship(s), On Everyone's Part Except Maybe Alastair's IDK, Post-Hell, Rough Sex, Sad Dean, Sad Sam, Sad Sam/Dean, Season/Series 04, Self-Hatred, Seriously Don't Even Get Me Started, Shame, Sorry Not Sorry, The Author Feels Like Sam Asked For This Fic, They Both Think They Are Monsters, This is not happening for happy reasons, but not super explicit, sort of meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 16:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11718429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: The tags are the summary, I think we can all guess some things here. Worst title is the worst, for that I do apologize.





	Now That We Understand Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> I'm uploading a lot of old stuff and season 4 is the season I might know the best. It was the season I was deepest in fandom. So IDEK, this is NOT a fix it because this is not a super happy Wincest fic. Actually this is the opposite, they're pretty unhappy here. This was going to be more involved with separate scenes but this was already really hard to do. Old season, new fic. 08.05.2017.
> 
> Also I really couldn't title this, so...but yeah.
> 
> UGH this hurt my heart and my gut.

Dean can smell the blood on Sam. Anyone who thinks he wouldn’t hasn’t been below. It doesn’t matter if Sam cleans up or covers it up with the added scent of sulphur-sex, Dean knows both those stenches too well.

So it’s never that Dean hasn’t guessed the lies. It’s that the lies are there.

Dean has his own secrets, forty years of them and all below, to a place Sam doesn’t remember being if he ever made it there. Dean has always, always, always, vigilantly done his best to make sure Sam is-- Sam is-- Sam.

Now Sam is a Sam of blood and sulphur and shame.

Dean can join in shaming Sam, sure, add on the pile.

He can if he wants to.

He wakes up at 3:05 in the morning and Sam isn’t there. He knows where he is. Sometimes Sam pretends the next morning, when he meets him at the car, that he’s been out for a run or getting coffee, but you don’t go for a run for a whole night, not even if you’re a Winchester.

Sam doesn’t have the “I totally meant to do that” false swagger down like Dean did when he was young and he never will.

But tonight, Sam doesn’t stay out all night hiding with her. He sneaks back into the room, keeping his eyes down. He’s hunched. He’s maybe a little scared. Maybe this is what he would call a bold move. Or just a move because he wants-- something-- something.

No, not exactly wants.

But not exactly doesn’t-want either.

Dean wouldn’t be able to put it in words but when he looks into Sam’s eyes he sees something close enough to his own haunted look in the mirror, the memories-not-memories like a thick skim of oily crud on top of who he used to be.

He looks into Sam’s eyes and he wonders what he’ll do. But he won’t let the moment to pass, not yet. His gaze becomes hard and challenging, daring Sam to look away from him.

Sam wants to, but that’s exactly it, he doesn’t dare.

They both know he doesn’t dare.

And neither of them exactly want this, but it is what they have.

There’s no swagger from Dean when he crosses the room and takes Sam’s wrist.

They don’t rush, but they don’t take their time. They just are.

They move together--not in sync but with a common purpose. And in a way, he’s wondering who they even are now. 

_Oh, brother, forgive me what I’ve done, what I am about to do._

Sam’s eyes are angry. Like he wants forgiveness but is daring Dean himself, daring him back to give it to him, to be some kind of chump. And on the inside, when he really digs down into himself, Dean guesses he feels about the same. He did get off the rack. He knows what it is to be a monster now.

 _Please don’t let-- us fall apart--_ Sam is saying with his eyes. Just pretend for a little while.

In the morning, both of them are spent and sore. Nothing about that night was gentle. But they both pretend the scent of sulphur was stripped away. They both pretend that Sam is still Dean’s, now more than ever.

They don’t talk about the way Sam’s eyes glistened or how Dean held himself back from begging in the last moments.

They don’t talk about Sam coming back early as a final admission of anything.

They don’t talk about mortification--at who they’ve been, who they’ve become, who they are now. Or how the very last barrier comes down in their efforts not to lose each other--any more of each other--than they already have.


End file.
